there you're now live okay good
afternoon everybody welcome to our
work session of las cruces city council
today is monday june 28
2021. um before we begin
and before we have our pledge of
allegiance you know albuquerque is
always home to the
balloon fest festival every year and
really well known for that
unfortunately over the weekend there was
a huge tragedy five albuquerque
residents lost their lives martin and
mary martinez
susan and john montoya and the pilot
nick moleski so if i could ask for a
brief moment of silence
and then i'll say the pledge of
allegiance please
please join me in the pledge i pledge
allegiance to the flag
of the united states of america and to
the republic for which it stands
one nation under god indivisible with
liberty
and justice for all thank you
okay so now we're going to turn to um
looks like veronica it's going to be
given the pet of the week
[Music]
maybe not all right hello guys
all right all right
so i will go ahead and start off with
the pet of the week
uh right here we have victor he's a
three-year-old domestic
short hair um a little bit about him
i am victor i am basically a large free
teddy bear
i'm a big bone 13 pound cat
but all i want to do is be held carried
around
uh do you happen that happens at 16
sorry somebody here
our walking was on do you happen to have
room in your life or a
big baby like me um he is neutered
male um and let me go over to
our a dog of the week
all right right here is arbonne he's
one-year-old medium
uh breed he is also fixed
a little bit about him my name is zarbon
and my favorite day of the week is
tongue out tuesday often you will catch
me
with a bleep or a small goofy smile
because of my underbite but i think
it makes me quirky i am also fun size
and
convenience i'm only 30 pounds so you
think you're getting a big dog but
you're really not
um but yeah that's about it and hope you
all have a good day
okay vanessa did you um want to just
mention
where you guys are located and yes
so we will be having some off-site
events this um saturday it'll be 9 a.m
to 12 o'clock at the farmers market
we are off of highway 70
um and then we are accepting volunteers
right now
and accepting new applications so come
by
help us out we're looking for some
people to
take dogs out for walks and interact
with cats
and we love our volunteers and
will you be opening up on july 1st as
the state opens up will the
animal service center be open back to
regular normal hours
i do not have that information but we
are having a staff meeting
tomorrow so i will have plan update
everybody and we'll
more than likely send out an email and
update our
facebook page and update you guys next
monday
okay if they need more information they
can call
575-382-0018
yes sir
okay thanks vanessa all right thank you
okay so now we're going to go to the
jobs of the week
and i believe um cindy
quinlan will be doing that
hello everyone good afternoon mayor good
afternoon everyone
um i'm cindy quillen and these are our
jobs of the week
uh we have a water production supervisor
this position is through the city of las
cruces this position will close
on july the 15th of 2021
next we have uh home health aid
caregivers
through rios de home health there are 10
positions available
and these positions will close on july
the 22nd
they are looking for a receptionist
position with greg
family healthcare this position closes
on july the 21st
also there is a store clerk position
available
through good news thrift store this
position closes on july the 21st also
and there is also a warehouse manager
position available with crescent
electrical supply and this position
closes on september the 19th
but for a full list of all the jobs and
opportunities and internships that we
have available
you can visit us at www
or you can go to www.governmentjobs.com
careers slash las cruces our local
office here in las cruces
is at 226 south alameda boulevard
and our phone number is 575-524-6250
thank you so much and have a great
afternoon and a great week
okay great thanks cindy and now we're
going to turn to
assistant manager eric enriquez with the
coven 19 update
good afternoon marion council eric
henriquez assistant city manager to give
covet 19 update
so as of today um
fully vaccinated rate in donating county
is 59.9
as of today that equals
115 000 plus for
those that have at least one one shot
and 102 997 for those that are
fully vaccinated uh to equal that 59.9
uh fema uh team that is in town has
completed round
one where they have gone out to the las
cruces public school of donate community
college the farmers market
where they've been hosting those events
and they've been doing very well
they will also have an event on the
fourth of july
um during the concert time i believe
from five to seven pm to also
do some vaccinations in the fourth of
july
castle reno's had a vaccination
clinic this past wednesday um i share
that because
it was it was very small as far as
numbers went i think they
had less than 15 that received the
vaccine but the good news is
the individuals that were in line had
all stated that they had already been
vaccinated
and they would tell others that it was
going to be available
from here on out on wednesdays this week
should boost us definitely well over the
60 uh percent as every third week we see
a spike in numbers due to the booster
dosages that take place and this week is
is the third week so we should see large
numbers
as far as those getting their second
round of the hill stage
with the asylum refugees it remains the
same um
a lot of space and capacity over at the
annunciation house in el paso
i do want to share that fema along with
the new mexico
um homeland security
is here this week with the coalition
group the
faith-based organizations doing incident
command system training that's
ics 100 and 200 it's your basic
uh ics uh information
for those uh with the faith-based
organizations
on asylum refugees and that's going on
today tomorrow and the next day
just wanted to let you know i'll stand
for any questions sir
thank you so eric one quick question i i
think you answered it but just double
check
so on your previous screen and you had
booster vaccine so you're talking about
the number the second shot that's what
you because
i know once upon a time i know they're
discussing
whether or not there's going to be
booster shots in the future to add to
those that are already
fully vaccinated but i thought that's
what you meant i just want to make sure
yes there is after 21 days three weeks
you see a large amount of those getting
their vaccination and then three weeks
later
that's what we call the booster uh
dosage
shot thank you sir
uh any questions does that look like all
right
so we're gonna go ahead and go on with
the with the work session we have three
items on the agenda
first one is gonna be the audit entrance
conference
so josie medina and chris gardner
looks like going to be presenting good
afternoon
josie medina the accounting manager in
the finance department
today we have our external auditors
patio brown and hill
pbnh to discuss the scope and objectives
of the fiscal year 21
annual audit review so fiscal year 21
covers july 1st 2020
to june 30 2021
this is pb h a second year performing
the annual audit for the city of las
cruces
and doing today's presentation is chris
garner
[Music]
chris are you there
okay it looks like he just unmuted
himself and looks like the camera's
about ready to turn on here sorry about
that
that's okay i was almost to slide two
okay so just need you to identify
yourself again chris please
sure this is chris garner with patio
brown and hill and
i want to say thank you josie and mayor
and council
what i have here is a presentation that
auditing standards require we make
certain communications during the
entrance
part of the audit or the beginning phase
of the audit and
really there's been no changes since
last year so this is going to be very
similar to what you saw last year so
we'll get started off with the first
slide
and i just wanted to introduce myself i
am
chris garner i'm the partner in charge
of the engagement and then the other
main contact is heather lucero she was
in charge of the audit last year and
will be in charge of the audit again
for the day-to-day operations of
everything and so
at one point i'm going to ask for some
input from
council and this might not be the
appropriate forum for
responses but josie
has both heather and my contact
information and so she can get that to
you
if anybody has any questions in the
future
so the first required communication is
we're supposed to talk about timing
and so at this point in the audit we're
just getting started off
um in june and july with remote testing
and we're going to be testing internal
controls doing our walkthroughs of
transactions and actually picking
samples
and we'll be also picking samples of
state auditor compliance testing there's
a lot of items that the new mexico state
auditor expands
in their audit rule that we have to test
things like procurement and
traveling per diem and there are several
instances of those items and we'll get
started with
those and we'll also get started with
planning for the single audit
and then the last point is is completing
the risk assessment and
towards the end of the presentation
we'll kind of talk about how
the council and management play a part
in that risk assessment
and we'll kind of conclude talking about
that at the very end
field work we're anticipating at this
point september and october coming out
you know last year we did probably about
half remote half in the field
my first ceo probably pretty much the
same this year
so we plan on getting that completed in
september october
and then finishing up the audit and then
starting with getting the financial
statements drafted and
prepared to send to the state auditor
will be happening in october and
november
the audit is due the first of december
to the new mexico state auditor since
you go after the
gfoa award and so that will
have to be submitted to them by the end
of november
the next required communication and this
is one that we talk about on both sides
we talk about here at the entrance
and then also at the exit
our responsibilities under auditing
standards is they want to make it very
clear
is what we've been hired to do is
express an opinion on your financial
statements
and what that means in that right box is
we're getting what's called
reasonable assurance meaning that we
don't look at every transaction
there could be errors in the financial
statements but those financial
statements are not going to have what we
call
material errors and what that means is
is the readers of the financial
statements those errors are not going to
be big enough
to affect their opinion on the financial
status of the city
and so again we don't look at every
transaction we only pick samples we look
at internal controls
there's various things but we definitely
don't audit every transaction
so that's our responsibility under
auditing standards
the new mexico state auditor requires us
to do a government audit
follow government auditing standards is
also known as a yellow book audit
and in a yellow book audit we have to
test internal controls
um differently than what we're required
to in a regular audit
in a regular audit we could just pick
one transaction walk it through the
system
and we could be done with the yellow
book audit we actually have to test
those internal
controls but in testing those internal
controls as you see on the left
we're not testing them to give an
opinion what that yellow book report
does is it spells out how we've expanded
our testing
and then we have to report the results
of those tests and if you look on the
right box
we are required to communicate what's
called significant matters in accordance
with the yellow book standards
however the new mexico state auditor
lowers that threshold
in essence to the ground level and says
if you come across anything
auditors you are required to report any
of that in the financial statement so
in new mexico anything that we come
across has to be included in your
financial statements and the
end audit the next responsibility that
we have to talk about is is the city's
responsibility
and management is responsible for
preparing a trial balance and preparing
financial statements in accordance with
generally accepted accounting principles
the standards that we have to follow as
your auditors management is also
responsible for preparing your numbers
and preparing your financial statements
in accordance with that methodology
this includes ensuring that they are
performing all management functions
we can't make management decisions as
your auditors and so that is
management's responsibility to make sure
that that's happening
you are responsible for making all
financial decisions
including any adjustments that have to
be made to the financial statements
and then in pl implementing internal
controls that
is the city's responsibility to make
sure that those controls are
safeguarding your assets so
in essence you're responsible for your
numbers you present them to us
and we as auditors will go through and
audit those numbers and make sure they
comply
with what we call gaap
the next required communication is
talking about the scope of the audit
as we have listed here there are a few
different components
of the audit that we will be testing so
first of all we'll be doing the city
we're also responsible for auditing
south central solid waste authority
the the downtown tid animal service
center of the messiah valley
the messiah valley regional dispatch
authority and metro narcotics
agency so all of these entities are
under the scope and will be audited as a
part of
what we will be doing this year
communication again i think last year um
you know as we were going through the
process there are a few different items
that were brought up during the audit
process
and we use status updates throughout the
audit to
keep management aware of where we are
and potential problems or
or potential findings that we might have
and again i think that last year
that went um to the the manager
and then the manager i think updated
the city council but one of the things
that that happens again this year we've
just got to make sure
that we keep that information
confidential
any information that's released as far
as potential findings or
any results of the audit they can't be
made public until after the new mexico
state auditor
has accepted and released the audit
report and so
that won't happen until probably
december at some point
so any communication that happens during
the audit
needs to remain confidential and
not be talked about in a public forum
audit rule changes there really was not
very much
um this year there were lots of
clarifications throughout the audit rule
that were changed
payments that can be made to the
auditors have been increased
change in auditor rotation requirements
were done this year
auditors had to rotate off after six
years they've changed that now to
eight years the retiree healthcare
testing
last year we talked about with pera they
had changed
what we are required to audit in the
past we had to actually test all the
contributions to
para and retiree health care to make
sure that 100
of the amounts were getting submitted
appropriately to those agencies
last year they changed pera and said
that
the risk really for the city would be um
exempt employees that are not making
contributions
so if you were to find out at a later
date that
somebody wasn't contributing to pera and
they should have been for the last 10
years the city would
be on you know they would have a
liability for the entire mountain not
only the city's portion but also the
retirees portion and so
their concern is is making sure that
those that are being excluded are
properly
excluded this year in the state audit
rule they added rh
the retiree health care to that so we
will also be testing the retiree health
care to ensure that
those that are being exempt are being
exempt
properly
and i already talked about the rotation
for the state auditor
and then the retiree healthcare so i
went over those just a second ago
this year there really is not um very
many standards we have one you know due
to
cobid and gasby 95 delaying
certain standards last year
the only one that the city will have to
implement implement
is gasb 90 and i really don't think it
will have an effect on
the city if you go out if the city were
to
purchase an entity and had a majority
interest in that entity it would have to
be handled in a certain way and right
now you do have one entity with a
component unit
but there won't be any changes to how
you're recording for the south central
solid waste so
this really should not have any effect
upon the city this year but it is
the one new standard that will be
implemented during this year's audit
the last item is kind of that risk
assessment
that i wanted to visit with you know as
we go through
and information is provided to us we
just need to make sure that you know
that that information will be kept
confidential
the information will be only used for
audit purposes so
on the next slide we're going to talk
about some items that we did last year
and i actually did get some
participation from the city and it did
help with our risk assessment so
i appreciate that we will be sending out
questionnaires
to council and to some of management
regarding some of the issues we're going
to talk about here in a moment and so
counselors you will have
a questionnaire to return to us and
again if anybody
has any information that they want to
follow up with us later
um go ahead and get our information from
josie
and either heather or myself will
take whatever you whatever information
you have and we'll incorporate into our
risk assessment as we develop our audit
plan
so the last item is really kind of a
part of that
risk assessment if anybody is aware of
any material related party transactions
we really should be notified of those so
that we can make sure that
we have the proper segregation with
those decision making
happening with those type of
transactions and potentially those
transactions might have to be
recorded in the footnotes of the
financial statements depending upon
how significant they are so we need to
be made aware of any potential
related party transactions if anybody
has any
knowledge of any fraud or any concerns
that fraud could be happening
again please let us know so that we can
adjust our audit plan
and look into those issues and address
them and make sure that their proper
internal controls or if not make some
recommendations so
if anybody has any of those concerns
please let us know
this next one is special audits
i know accounting doesn't always in the
finance department
they're not always aware of those so if
anybody is aware of any special audits
that were performed
throughout the year if you please let us
know we need to get those reports so
that again we can incorporate them into
our
risk assessment which will develop the
actual audit steps that we take during
the audit
and then lastly if anybody has any
particular concerns with the type of
transaction that was handled
and we did have some some feedback last
year on certain types of transactions
that we did test during last year's
audit so i did appreciate the feedback
so if anybody has those
be sure and reach out to us again we
will take those into consideration
as we develop our audit plan
with that mayor i'll open up to any
questions
okay thanks uh chris we appreciate that
so are they any questions from council
councilor flores i thank you mr mayor
and thank you mr gardner it's nice to
see you again
um your presentation is very thorough
and for me it went by a little too fast
but that it's me i'm not speaking for
the rest of the council or the rest of
the city
and those watching but i do have a
question
um insofar as uh procurement
do you look at our ordinance to see if
it complies with the state or
i'm not saying it's not out of sync with
the state but how is it that you
in addition to looking at its
consistency with the state statute
do you how do you check for procurement
compliance so during our testing of
internal controls and that additional
yellow book testing that i mentioned
that is something that we have to look
at as procurement and we do look at your
policies but more so
if you're more strict than the state
requirements so
if your policy has different
requirements than the state as long as
it's strict
more strict we will test it to your
particular policies and procedures
if you don't have an issue that's
addressed that
that the state does address we you're
held to the state level
and so we do go through we do test
transactions
to make sure that you are in compliance
with both the state and your internal
policies and procedures and and in most
cases
um i believe the city did have a little
bit more
strict guidelines than what the state
requires and so we did have to test
some transactions we pick samples and we
test those transactions to
ensure that they are complying with your
rules and regulations
thank you mr gardner sure thank you mr
mayor
[Music]
anyone else so
um chris when do you when do you foresee
that we're going to begin
doing these um
oh wait a minute i got this confused so
normally you're not
you're going to be just working with a
staff for the next six months it's after
that then you're gonna have the
preliminary discussions with what you
found
and then at that at that time you'll
have meetings
with various members of council who sit
on various boards like for example
you may invite those who sit on the
south central solid waste authority
which is uh i know the mayor i believe
the mayor program myself
and one other council member i forgot uh
and then
they'll be invited i'm sorry mayor
pretend who
is
they'll be invited to to um sit in
on that right so i think that's one
thing um
and maybe that's mayor proton was going
to talk about it was
just to ensure the fact that we have
them those
those meetings after you finish so okay
so yeah what will happen is you know
during the planning phase of the audit
we will send out questionnaires
and give the opportunity for any
concerns or any um
things that we just talked about and
then after that fact yeah probably the
next interaction
we will have with council will be at the
exit conferences and we will hold
five separate exit conferences one for
each entity
to ensure that we don't have um you know
we don't um violate the having too many
counselors at the meeting and so we will
do
separate exit conference for each entity
at probably sometime in november that
will happen
okay thank you very much
question i do mayor thank you so much i
have my
camera off because i have spotty
internet so
um but with that um
um so we've received some funding from
the karzak and arpa funding
and have distributed obviously a good
portion of the cares act if not
all of it do you have a process where
you would be
um looking at that um
specifically and i'm i'm thinking um the
specific
um money that was distributed from
economic development department
to businesses
so so the answer the short answer is yes
and what
happens is that you
when the the city spends more than 750
a federal fund you're subject to an
expanded audit which called a single
audit and so we have to audit
those federal grants and there's i
believe there's 11 compliance
requirements
that can be applicable to each grant and
so
in this case i know the city did expend
more than 750
000 and so when um when you have an
individual grant that spends more than
750 000
those grants have to be looked at at
least every three years
and since this is new funding that will
definitely
be one of the audits um or one of the
single audits that we have to perform
this year so
we will select those um we will select
the cares funds and we will audit those
in accordance with the guidelines
established by the federal government
the problem has been is there hasn't
been a lot of guidance at this point
we have a new compliance requirement
that will be submitted
supposed to be in the next couple of
months but last year it took
a lot longer and so once we get that
guidance from them
we will go through and we will make sure
that the city is complying
with those federal requirements and we
will be auditing those dollars
i appreciate that thank you those are
all my questions mayor
thank you anyone else
okay see none well thank you chris thank
you mayor yeah
okay so next item is item 4.2 the
alliance for regional military support
or arms a quarterly update
uh mr richard dayub um i believe lance i
guess is also
eric were you going to start things off
oh mayor council yes i was just going to
introduce them okay
i was just going to say that our next
presentation gives me a
pleasure and privilege to introduce
uh mr de you and and lance lear
uh they head up the alliance for
regional military support also known
as arms and you know their their their
strategy is to develop
actionable items to enhance the military
value
in the region we've had several meetings
and they discussed a lot of great things
of what they plan to do what they're
doing and uh
look forward to this presentation and
hopefully uh turns into a great
discussion
so without further ado
thank you good afternoon everyone eric
thank you for those kind words
mira miyagashima mir pro tem members of
council
uh for the record i'm richard deyou and
i serve as the
as the treasurer for the alliance for
regional military support
and i want to apologize in advance i'm
not sure where
the buffering is coming from if it's
from the city's end or
from each of us i i noticed when chris
was just speaking with regard to
uh the audit there were a couple of
times and i lost his voice so
i i can't turn my camera off i guess
because we will need to have that
presentation
coming up before you but i want to again
thank you marion council for
giving us this opportunity to present
for you on a quarterly basis
joining me today as of this moment
uh is john bailey who is our vice chair
of arms and our secretary mr
landslair will be on the call with us as
well and we'll try to make this
a pretty brief presentation to you we've
worked hard
to eliminate redundancy in this
information
and then i have to reach out to annette
to ask her
does she has she already given me
permission to share screen
and if so then i can i can pull up our
presentation
[Music]
up for you let's take a look here
i have authority uh to share mr
uh mr mayor and council and richard if
you'd like me to i'll go ahead and do it
okay go ahead yes that would be great
lance thank you
and we'll begin the presentation all
right tell me if it's
large enough and so forth
you have to do what f5 is that right
counselor sword
that's correct
great oh that's beautiful okay so i
guess since i'll begin the conversation
i have to say to lance just like in a
military presentation next slide please
thank you so again to just at this
at the risk of of being redundant uh we
met with
excuse me with the city manager
ethopealy and and with eric enriquez uh
last week and
had a great conversation with him and
took about an hour to really just fill
them in
on a lot of information that
time does not permit during a
presentation before council
so i'll try to get through this with
the help of lance and john as quickly as
possible
uh and without rushing and then
we we can open up for questions so these
are the recent accomplishments that
we've been working with
for the last since the last quarter uh
report that we gave to you
so i will not read them all to you
you're perfectly capable of doing that
on your own but i would like to
highlight
a couple of these including the two-part
multi-week town hall meeting
uh emphasizing testing with both white
sands missile range
then brigadier general tribula of course
they've had a change of command since
then
and general gallivan with army test and
evaluation command
and then a very special meeting town
hall meeting we had
with army futures deputy commander
three-star general general mccain who's
a longtime friend of ours
uh and was stationed at bliss a few
times
we worked with him back when he was a
brigade commander
so he's moved right away up the list uh
we've tried to focus
our attention in working with uh the
legislators in new mexico
especially with uh senator lujan on our
priorities and focus
and i want to pause there for just a
second and we gave to ifo
and to uh to eric when we were there
last week a little cheat sheet if you
will
that's probably not the best word maybe
an elevator speech
little cards that lance put together
we've been working on for some time
under sort of your handout
that you can carry with you in your
breast pocket or your purse
and when you need to speak to someone
about what you're doing
related to the military and
to speak to what the relationship is
with arms
that little card with bullet points will
be helpful to you i think
and you can produce as many of them as
you wish
and i believe if they haven't already
passed them out to you they will do so
shortly and then our goal is each
quarter
to not only update our presentation to
you but also to update
that little card so that it reflects
whatever newest things we're working on
with you
that we consider collectively a priority
for you
and then we met with army futures
command for an in-person visit
to expand opportunities at new mexico
state university
and for those of you don't know
brigadier and that's the title they use
because he's a british
general officer who serves out at fort
bliss
under the command of the committing
general out there andy cox
and he is working with you all up in las
cruces
particularly if i'm not mistaken with
the mayor pro tem on a program that you
guys have developed
over some time suicide prevention that
he's so impressed with that he's
he's now working with you all to bring
that that
sort of best practices out to fort bliss
so thank you for that
next slide
next slide lance
thank you uh and i'm going worse already
do you want to take over a little bit
talk a little bit about this either one
of you
i'll jump in uh so this is the second uh
recent accomplishment slides
thanks to mr dave and team we've
established a memorandum of
understanding
uh within vita and the border industrial
association which we talked about in our
last
uh in-person meeting um we hosted a
meeting with raytheon
and eric sanchez at nmsu
uh to discuss future growth
opportunities uh
and that is taking on a life of its own
i think uh raytheon
who we're concentrating on now is very
interested
uh and they're going to continue uh that
dialogue
and that will turn into something that
um
that will be good for the area uh
we uh one of our members met with dr
torres
uh about opportunities with afc and
we'll talk a little bit more
about that later we're trying to get it
in person uh
for uh dining community college with afc
get them out there uh to get the
briefing
and get some particulars um
uh the city manager's team met with
raytheon and i'm sure they can brief
we're continuing to meet with leadership
on manning and how we can increase
uh troop strengths at uh all the
regional bases
in this case um
white sands we are
actively advocating for milcon
and srm funding streams
uh because uh there are a lot of work
that needs there is a lot of work that
needs to be done
um out at mcgregor and dona and
and some of the the ranges out there so
we're continuously pushing for that and
we're gonna see
we know that it was put into language
and we'll see if it makes it through the
cut
and as previously discussed we're
working with
atec and wisdom leadership are there any
questions on that slide
you know i can kind of jump in real
quick lance just a couple things
first off and i know that thanks to you
all working with the department of
defense i was just told very recently
that
white white sands missile range is now
getting a unit that they're going to be
training
special forces there in and out and
that's good and so i appreciate that
second of the meeting with raytheon
they have reached out to both mexico
state and
and wanted me to put the word out that
they're interested in hiring electrical
engineers
if there's any electrical engineers
watching email me and
i've got their contact information so
thank you for setting that up as well
and i believe oh on the previous screen
too bad richard didn't ask like what you
did about the question but that's okay
uh on the william beaumont army medical
center
uh update on that because we have a lot
of
veterans here in las cruces who who
sometimes have to use the va hospital
and um so i appreciate
any updates you have on that oh okay
well i think we can probably share that
with you
as a team but if it's okay with lance
and john i'll chime in real quick
we we actually have a new commander
coming on board in the middle of july
and he will take over as the commanding
officer at william beaumont
and also somewhere in the middle of the
month
there's going to be before the change of
command
where colonel oshiki will be going to
d.c
they're going to finally have a formal
opening
in fact i think it's this week that the
grand opening is
is it not july 1st john yes it is july
1st
there have that's this thursday they're
having a grand opening
out at uh at the new beaumont hospital
we asked that of course protocol
the protocol officers work in different
locations on on the installation they're
not all the same folks
so i don't know if they forwarded to all
of you
an invitation but if they have not if
you'll let me know mirror we can
still make sure that they notify you all
of the event which begins i think
uh formerly o 900 on thursday morning
for the grand opening of the new
hospital
and have you been notified i'm sorry go
ahead
i was just asking the mirror have you
been notified have you gotten any
information
i can't recall i know i received
something i wasn't too sure if it was
that or
i think it was the change of command on
colonel brady
whose father also retired as a colonel
here
in las cruces and i believe his son is
is taking over um
garrison command garrison command over
there
yes sir that's coming up too very
quickly well when we get off this call
first thing i'll do is reach out to
beaumont
and ask them to please make sure that
you receive that information from
information as well as the city manager
then you all can circulate it among
the members of council and then you can
respond directly back to them
if you can make it it's a pretty early
start to come in from cruces
and they're all the way on the far far
far east side
of the city but
nonetheless we'll get it to you thank
you i appreciate that
and how many square feet is that
hospital
i actually don't know that number i've
heard it several times but it's
i want to say it's uh north
of a million square feet it's absolutely
gigantic
yeah it's huge it is it's very i think
you're correct richard
i think you're correct on that okay
and they will be conducting tours if you
do make it out i think they'll be
conducting tours
that morning as well just to give anyone
the size
that's probably 12 walmarts
[Laughter]
family centers yeah that's huge with a
little bit more technology i hope
yeah and i would add mayor for the
veterans
um the as you know the
va clinic and and the army had a hard
time getting together to get all that
stuff
put in at the same time but mike emerald
who was the
director of the clinic there and at the
old william beaumont
has gotten that in and they are actually
starting to work the planning and so
since there is
already uh the ground has been laid so
you know the connections and the piping
and all that are there so we're looking
at probably about four years
uh um but you know that's
the va may do a quicker job of it than
uh the corps of engineers did
but yeah it looks like they'll be down
there co-located again
uh a lot sooner than we thought just
based on
the va pushing that and understanding
the necessity
uh of of having a new clinic there
adjacent to the
new william bloomberg thanks lance
mayor was that all the questions you had
on that slide thank you i don't know i'm
sure
my colleagues had anything not yet
lance you want to push us to upcoming
events okay take
take the first couple bullets on that
since you were in austin
you can probably speak to this more
intelligently
well we we were able to get out to uh
army
futures command in austin with some of
our folks
uh and some of the economic development
folks
uh and by the way we'll we'll set that
up again
uh so that we can get uh uh las cruces
out there with us
um it was a very good
very good visit they have a capital
factory out there which
you know because of the size and because
it's the capital there are a lot of
venture capitalist business people angel
investors out there
that uh want to find the next good thing
uh that has to do with the with the
army's future
uh they are all things upcoming and they
they have quite a large pocketbook
when it comes to commands we were able
to see their software factory
and we were able to see the capital
factory and the army applications
laboratory we have much more information
on that which we
can send to you for um
for those that are interested in working
uh with defense with the defense
industry
they do um they do a lot of
grants and so forth uh so you have to go
to aal dot
uh i believe it's is it a al dot mil
i think yes yes yes it is and so you can
get on there and and those that are
interested can
can see what the army needs and that's a
huge
change in the way that the the army
procures
things so instead of saying we want this
and we want this many of it and this is
exactly what we need
they're saying this is our problem and
if you're out there and you have the
ability to address this problem get in
contact with us
and if i may lance just to underscore
that last point he made
about the change in in the mindset
for the military the army in particular
is they actually do not want to work
with
the lockheed martins and the other
really large defense contractors
who already make billions of dollars
with a b
from from the government they want
the small operators the startups the
young bright minds who are
going to be able to come to the table
and say here's a solution
that we've created and if the army
agrees then they'll
help fund them as as lance touched on
but that's their focus area
yes that's that's incredibly important
so especially startups
small business ideas that will
get after one of the 17 or so
requirements of the army he hasn't
found a fix for it uh and i'll just um
and i'll just cover the second bullet
which is
uh that we are planning a visit with uh
dak
uh to go to nmsu to meet with army
futures commands
both the applications laboratory and the
software factory we're working that
uh as it is um john you want to take the
rest of the bullet sir
sure i can jump in here uh so we're
continuing to work as we are with
raytheon to uh
show what we can provide in the las
cruces area
and it's important that we keep raytheon
attached to that and connected
as we mentioned earlier we're definitely
working with all of our
elected officials on the house armed
services committee
and we have gotten language into the
the hask bill on on
military for don anik and the
mcgregor ranges so we're really
expecting that to to come through and
we're hoping we get the money put to put
to it we're working very closely with
new mexico state and
brigadier general retired sanchez and
dak as
as we want to develop that pipeline for
white sands missile range for the people
that are coming out we're working with
them to try to figure out how to do the
clearances
how to make those type of things happen
so that when students graduate they can
go straight into work
at white sands and stay home in in las
cruces
and it's really important that uh we're
setting up a
town hall for one of the army astronauts
to speak
on the stem program and the
opportunities we're going to work with
the high schools to
to help develop that and build that
process into it
any questions on that slide
i just want to just talk a little bit
about psl
just in case any of my colleagues
weren't aware of you know back in the
back in the eight back in the 80s and
90s
and even the early 2000s they were big
they were they basically
physical science laboratory they have a
direct connection with sandia labs
and a lot of the engineers from new
mexico state went right
working for them you have to have a top
secret clearance
and i mean it's they're literally an arm
of one of the labs here
unfortunately a few presidents
predecessors uh really didn't see it as
much value but
thanks to chancellor arvisu he's
resurrected it again
and they're really wanting to really
build up psl and and thanks to him and
then of course retired
uh brigadier general sanchez whose
wife's from messiah
you know he wanted to retire here and
couldn't have picked a better person and
they're really starting to again
build that up because this this helps
not only develop
things for for our nation's defense but
also provides jobs for engineers
so that they don't have to leave las
cruces and so they're looking to
probably get back to the way they used
to be i mean they used to
unemploy hundreds of engineers there and
brings in a lot of money to the
university
and to the economy here in las cruces so
i just want to commend
those involved for doing this and
working with them so i think that's
really
important especially when you hear so
many engineers
wishing to leave but we do have a couple
questions one mayor pro tem gandera and
the other from council vasquez thank you
mayor
hello gentlemen good to see you again um
is a
this is a great um presentation very
um detailed i i do want to say a big
thank you
to those of you that have connected us
to brigadier
cox i believe is his name i've had at
least one conversation
with him and all the work that they're
doing there at fort bliss
specific to suicide prevention my heart
goes out to
to all our military um those
um you know working here and and
you know out of country there there's
some serious things happening
um related um you know to suicide
ideation
suicides and you know he shared quite a
bit with me so
i'm i'm really looking forward to the
continued conversations and work
um but my question really stems from
this hearing the
the development of this pipeline right
from the military over to the stem
program
or from the high schools over to
military i i wanted it to see if there
could be
a more specific conversation with our
our chief dominguez related to
helping us build um
um you know a good uh workforce um
as as you may or may not know we're um
several officers short and we're working
diligently and i i should say lcpd
working diligently to go on you know and
having these um career fairs um
you know just trying to get folks to
work with
um work um with the sit with lcpd so
i'm wondering if you're willing to have
those conversations
to see how we can work together to
sort of build you know that pipeline of
either um
high school stem program into military
or military as they're being discharged
honorably discharged out
considering being a police officer
man that's a great question i'll jump in
here and the answer to that is
absolutely we can help have that
conversation both white sands and fort
bliss has soldier for life transition
plans
and we can sit down with with both those
folks and start really talking about
transitioning especially we have
military police that are getting out
on a regular basis that we can
absolutely
work with them to let them know that
there's opportunities in las cruces for
uh the police force and and work with uh
your folks to
put those two together and make
something happen there so we absolutely
can
what we'd like to get is kind of the
point of contact and who we need to talk
to so we can get smarter on
uh what you're looking for what we need
and then we're more than happy to sit
down with soldier for life
transition assistance program and get
them um
helping us market that and put that out
to the right folks with it
thanks john thank you so much i don't
know if
uh chief dominguez is on or somebody
that could
help give some contact information right
away
yeah ma'am uh gus rodriguez here also um
can you hear me all right yes yes yes
yeah
sorry sorry i'm kind of in between doc
appointments
so so to that the one thing that we're
also considering
this is us yes can you state which
organization you're with
yes uh gus rodriguez is the chair for
the uh
the alliance for regional military
support thank you i'm sorry mr mayor
uh yeah so one one thing that we're
thinking about
also is maybe the past week we possibly
could
could uh have the chief do a leader
development session with the portless
mps
which will ex expose them give them that
ex
that interaction with with the chief of
police from las cruces
and um there could be some dialogue that
takes place and they're always doing
leader development and think that the
experience that the chief has
could be beneficial to the military
police
and and and vice versa so that might be
a
an inexpensive way for the city to maybe
reach out to potential
applicants that might consider uh
joining the las cruces police force
that's great thank you so much that
those are all my questions and comments
mayor
mayor pretend if i may uh if you could
since you have
gus's email on mine i know for sure
because i see your emails regularly
if you wouldn't mind just forwarding to
us chief dominguez's contact information
then we can start from there
will do thank you thank you ma'am
thank you mayor protam
yes thank you mayor thank you mayor pro
tem uh thank you gentlemen for your
presentation here today
um really appreciate hearing the update
and some of the progress that's been
made
a few questions here
one question i have is related to the
castner range
in el paso um if you're familiar with
the caster range
an effort to uh to nominate the council
range as a national monument
um including uh during the obama
administration
by former congressman o'rourke and now
by representative
escobar and there's still i believe is a
issue there with unexploded munitions um
representative o'rourke had requested to
the
um to the us to the army department of
defense
to essentially expedite the cleanup of
unexploded munitions to open that up as
i think about 7 000 acres of public land
for the
community to use um i know we're not el
paso
but we did have a chance to create a
beautiful national monument here
um that has brought you know for us a
lot of positive economic
um uh support for our community
i am just wondering if uh your if the
alliance is doing any any work
um or would be interested in connecting
with
folks um to ensure that that's a
possibility
uh and i think this is a benefit for us
as las cruces because
we we are kind of one region right and i
think we would like to see more of those
recreational opportunities open
on our public lands so i'm just
wondering if you all have had any
interface with the army or department of
defense
on the cleanup of unexploded munitions
on the caster range
council vasquez if if i could before i
say anything
gus do you have some info you'd like to
share
uh yes council vasquez
uh that's that's a good question sir and
so
there is discussion that's continuing
that's taking place in regards to caster
range
um the the challenge with kastner range
is the cleanup is is so
so costly you know in an environment
with constrained budgets so i
i you know in conversation with
leadership it doesn't seem that that's
getting any traction
uh what is is you know so from a lot
from a short-term
perspective it doesn't seem like it's
getting traction because of the of the
cost
uh from a long-term perspective you know
there are possibilities and there's
always that
opportunity for dialogue you just never
know sometimes you know they
you know there's something comes up that
that might be able to expedite it
but it but at this point um you know
the cost will just would just be uh to
to immense
i know that that's not necessarily the
answer you'd like to hear
but you know from a cost perspective
it's it's the reality of what the
department of defense would have to do
thanks gus and if i may just add on to
that um
without it being a sort of an official
statement since we're
we're not an official body to speak to
this issue related to the
department of defense and department of
army but i do know
because i worked when i was at the
chamber with congressman o'rourke at the
time
on this to try and find a balance point
because as dust pointed out
and the cost is absolutely prohibitive
at this point i think the lowest
100 amount we heard even a few years
back
to clear that of unexploded so-called
uxo
unexploded ordinance was north of 200
million dollars
and as you know we're trying right now
just to get a much smaller number in
funding for critical
initiatives on the on the installations
both white sands and
and fort bliss but at adding to that
though
what i believe we've been given to
understand is
the army whether it's official
unofficial has
advised the congresswoman now and before
the congressman
that there is absolutely no effort on
the part of the army
to utilize that space for anything
official so they're leaving it alone
anyway
but of course it can't really be safely
utilized as you pointed out
until all that ordinance has been safely
removed
so that people can can begin to use it
and truly appreciate it
but it's really bogged down because of
financial constraints more than anything
else
thank you mr deuben um thank you mr
rodriguez uh
yes it would be wonderful to have
another national monument in our part of
the world
i think it's part of what attracts our
visitors and gets our tourism economy
going
as a region from from white sands um
obviously to the to the oregon mountains
uh and beyond so i appreciate that
answer i mean i think you know
uh 190 million or 200 million uh dollars
worth of cleanup if if that were to go
to local
companies um even new mexico-based
companies or las cruces companies to
whatever
um degree that that
economic development opportunity could
be shared amongst
our region i think would be impactful
for for small businesses here in
addition to
i'm sure the big companies that have
more of an expertise in this area but
um thank you i appreciate that it's kind
of a question out of left field but
figured you guys
actually i think it was a good question
though and my only additional offer to
you sir
is i would encourage you to reach out to
congresswoman escobar's office
and speak to them about this to let them
know that even though you're in southern
new mexico how much you support this
effort
they may be able to give you more
updates that have been shared
more widely
thank you mr dave i appreciate that
another question here is around uh and
this is maybe more of an abstract
question but
uh with the faa licensing now the
uh the commercial space flight at
spaceport america
um it seems like things are on track to
start those passenger space flights
uh into space via virgin galactic which
is exciting
i think for many of us who have been
waiting for movement at the spaceport
for
a long time is there anything you can
comment on as it relates to um
any type of potential partnership or the
convergence of
economic development opportunities with
our military bases and the spaceport
is there an area of growth or
opportunity there to explore
i'm personally not aware of anything but
i will again defer to my colleagues
to see if they perhaps have been told
especially gus since he works
so closely at fort bliss but i'm not
aware of anything
so congressman vasquez there are there
are discussions white white sands right
now does a lot of the uh
launch work for spaceport america
and virgin galactic and all those so
they do a lot of launches out of white
sands to
test the the rockets and various things
along that line
so i'm sure that and we have nothing
official but i'm sure as we move forward
that there will be some some work
between white sands and
spaceport america on opportunities to do
some testing of the
the new uh ships that come in more
likely that'll be where the
the synergy is is on the test aspect of
it
so that the companies flying out of
spaceport america will probably do most
of their testing on
whatever propulsion systems they're
using to uh
to get the the civilians into space will
probably be done
at white stands so that's really where i
think that the convergence of that's
going to be
okay that was gus rodriguez speaking
that was john
bailey john bailey with arms sorry
i'm sorry about that sounded similar
well i think there's a compliment thank
you sir
thank you mr bailey i appreciate that
and um yeah just
you know thinking about the the
possibility between
uh the nasa the various um the test
has and uh the partnership between the
spaceport and an opportunity to grow
uh you know those testing grounds or
that body of work
um i think would be beneficial to las
cruces as well
um looking into the future i know you
know that i'm just just wondering if
there was any new updates or
developments on any type of
i don't think there's anything official
that's going through right now with with
the two of them
um except for the test it's really going
to be a
test basis probably per per company
that's working out of there
um as the right place to test and those
are things that we work with white sands
to understand what their testing
capacity and various things are
great thank you so much and my last
question here is just around
your communication and your contact with
the city
uh do you have a main point of contact
here at the city that you are
essentially going to for any types of
opportunities i know that your recent
trip to austin
and and i think your plan trip to austin
uh is there anything that you need
from that you feel you need from the
city or a particular point of contact
uh to make sure that the las cruces is
is being represented
um adequately at any of these meetings
or trips
counselor uh i can respond to that and
sir i will share with you that uh in all
the groups that we work with
i would say that the communication and
dialogue that's taking place between
arms and a government entity is probably
one of the best with the city of las
cruces so
from the city manager down to the rest
of your team mr enriquez
and and so forth so they they are
interacting with us on a regular basis
and um so so first of all sir thanks
thanks for that and uh and definitely if
there's something that
additional that we need you know we'll
send it through the channels or
or we'll reach out to you all when we
have our regular uh
updates to the council by the way to
answer your question
uh specifically about a poc eric
enriquez is the poc that was
assigned by the city to work with us and
it's already been great we've gus and i
had a great conversation with him via
zoom a few weeks ago and then last week
as i mentioned earlier
we came up there to meet uh with him and
with the city manager
and uh i can't speak for how they feel
about
uh the level of communication but from
our perspective
uh to underscore what gus just said i
think our relationship
with the city of las cruces and our
lines of communication
is the standard that i'd like to see the
other communities we work with
raise their their level of engagement
with us at the level you are
it's been great um i would add one more
thing
um we also although
everybody's been so darn busy but we're
also working with
uh to try and connect through your
economic development department we've
had some meetings with them and with
andy hume at the airport
and we're looking for opportunities to
help support andy
and his initiatives out there as well so
as long as we continue that dialogue i'm
confident we're going to find more
opportunities
sooner that will benefit the community
thank you mr day um you know i do have
one more
question actually for you on here
uh and it's related to the to the
national white sands test facility and i
don't know
um to what degree you all interact with
with that
particular operation but um you may be
familiar that during the
apollo space program uh nasa used
the test facility um for a variety of
different activities related to that
um to that project and in the process
unfortunately there was a lot of
groundwater
beneath the facility that was
contaminated when
hazardous substances were more released
during the nasa operations
um the cleanup the remediation is is
something that's still in progress
and i believe part of um it's a pretty
is a pretty substantial
damage that will cause to the
groundwater deposit there
and i think part of what i think we've
uh at least
i've thought about or what we can think
of you know in terms of the mitigation
and remediation of of that
um chemical spill what was perhaps
you know it if the city of las cruces is
losing
a potential viable source of groundwater
into the future
that some said some type of mitigation
efforts um
you know would be perhaps in order for
the city of las cruces or for dona ana
county
um and that form of other environmental
projects
or conservation projects that we could
implement here from any type of
um settlement we might expect from from
something related to this contamination
so
is that something that you all have on
your radar or something that you've
um looked into at all i can't speak for
my colleagues but
this is richard dave but from my
knowledge
i actually have no information about any
ongoing
discussions related to this gus is our
our point of contact with fort bliss as
well as
uh indirectly with white sands and
unfortunately
the young man from las cruces who works
with us kevin cardoso couldn't join us
today
to see if perhaps he may have any
information on this
have you had any dialogue counseling
with
any of the new mexico delegation about
this issue because this is really
this issue in my view is raised to that
level where
you really would have to engage both
of your u.s senators as well as your
congresswoman
uh for this discussion with with white
sands
yes do you have anything to add to that
um no
no i uh the only the only common
counselor in reference
in reference to your question uh is
well the only comment that i have is
that uh we we have not had any
interaction with with the nasa side of
white sands
you know at this point so that would
have to be something that we would have
to follow up with with individuals and
see if we can get some
additional information for for you um
and for the council
thank you mr dave mr rodriguez um
yes that information was shared to me uh
from senator lujan's office
and and um no new updates uh other than
that
they are they're continuing to assess
the damage that was caused to put a
dollar number on what the cleanup cost
would take and my understanding is the
cleanup
uh of that water source would be so long
into the future
that we essentially you know wouldn't
wouldn't be in our generation certainly
not in our kids generation either so
the thought around compensation to
you know any loss potential
resource there might come in other types
of
environmental mitigation projects in the
city
um if that were to be what happens but i
think that's an issue just to watch
closely
for us considering how precious our
water resources are here
um uh but but obviously something
related to
our military installations here but i i
appreciate it and uh thank you all so
much
thank you sir for raising this uh point
to us we'll keep we'll keep our radar up
on this one
okay thank you counselor um is there any
more to your presentation richard
uh yes we just wanted two more slides
and we're done
here we go we've touched a little bit on
some of this information but
i think it's important to note the focus
that
we at arms has but most importantly
because of our relationship with
raytheon their commitment
to work with stem students in your area
to develop a program that motivates the
students to continue this
stem career path i think that's
essentially important
guys please chime in anytime if i'm not
covering this efficiently
and then the next bullet with regard to
the long-range corridors we brought this
up at the last briefing
so this is a little more complex and
it's something
i want to defer to lance on because he's
sort of the subject matter expert on
this
thank you thank you thank you mr dave
this is lanceler again larrigan
this is something that um this is
something that requires interstate
intrastate and national level work
uh because it it is the the the long
range corridors
are basically state to state
and national as well as
army training or testing evaluation
command
particles so this is something that
atec and general gallivan has taken on
uh and they are working to make sure
with
holloman air force base because as you
can see there's many pieces to this
so there's holloman air force base
there's the high speed
uh aerial corridors and then there's
uh shooting you know having weapons
going uh
uh across the sky so this is very tough
work
uh but they're they're hashing it out
and i know that white sands and holloman
speak i know that
atec and all their pieces are speaking
amongst all of that
and so we we are concentrating right now
on the isolated post issues
uh which uh white sands missile ranges
you know it's
it's kind of out there it's not as
isolated as some other posts but there
are some things
that we're pushing for as far as
isolated posts go that have
have uh to do with additional pay and
additional uh uh things for for folks
that
uh live out their work out there and so
forth and hopefully you'll ask
your question thank you sir um
the last bull i'll just touch on we
briefly discussed this
last week when we were up there meeting
with with eric
and mr pele but i want to underscore
this
and mayor i think we've brought this to
your attention just in passing
but of course last year didn't happen
because of covid
but this year we're back on track the
association of united states army has
a national symposium every october in
washington dc
it is monumental in size they take the
entire
walter washington convention center for
this event
and it's three days of organized helfers
kilter
everyone who's anyone in a green suit
is there many of our legislators are
there
and so it gives us a great opportunity
to meet with them first
hand and talk about opportunities
to sell ourselves as our community
we very much would like for you mayor to
join us
and anyone else within your team who
wishes to go
we have to be up there i believe the
actual program runs on
from monday the i think it's the 11th of
october to the
14th of october you have to arrive on
sunday
and of course it's not an inexpensive
investment because of hotels
and their costs and flight airfare to
get there but
it is time well spent we've been going
up every year for as long as i can
remember
and we are successful through our
consultants that you helped pay for
with cyprus they helped coordinate for
us
meetings in advance with key leaders
both green suitors
and defense contractors to court them to
answer questions for them but i can't
underscore
how important it is to have our elected
civic leadership
in in our company when we're there
we actually host a related reception on
tuesday night uh our chairman gus
rodriguez coordinates this
through the association because he's a
fourth region president
and so all the fourth region uh chapters
share in this event and as an example
two years ago
the last one they had we hosted there
and as a guest we had general murray who
was just then named
to be the four-star general in command
of army futures command
and we were able to introduce him to
associated small at that reception and
congresswoman
escovar and they actually have developed
a relationship
since then and have met on a regular
basis so this kind of underscores how
important
you being there with us means so we hope
you'll be able to join us and we'll be
glad to send you any information you
need
uh gus is our point person on that
and then i guess with that uh unless
there's some additional questions
we can go to the next and i want to say
last slide
yeah mr day you been uh just uh just to
act
just to reinforce what what mr dave uh
after that custody i'm sorry mayor yeah
i forget to keep identifying myself i'm
sorry sir
but uh we will definitely in in working
you know with the with the city manager
and the and the team and
and and and the members of council take
a look at who
who those folks are gonna you know who's
gonna be out there and
to look at opportunities for not only
for you to meet with army leaders
but also to meet with industry potential
industry partners for the city of las
cruces
so it's a really great opportunity where
you have everybody there
you know and you can you can you know
hit a lot of potential targets you know
while you're there and and start
working a relationship thank you i
i believe uh councilor stork has a
commenter question
yes thank you mr mayor um and i
appreciate
the gentlemen that have been presenting
here um
uh all the information and the great
work you're doing
um costa vasquez brought some good
points up that i wanted to
add my support for um such as the
um castner range uh white's the
spaceport and then in the nasa
uh uh white science test facility
uh the pollution there but uh what i
wanted to bring attention to
i just so you know
i'm on the national league of cities uh
committee for environment and
natural resources and one of our
uh main um concerns and efforts have
been
in the contamination of pfas
um holloman air force base has uh
had a serious pfest contamination
uh is our understanding it is not
threatening any water source
now but uh looking into the future
um it it's always a possibility
um so i was just wondering if you're
aware of that and and um
and i support whatever efforts could be
to uh um keep the contamination it's not
just
uh holloman air force base it's it's
canada air force base it's
air force bases and other uh facilities
okay
it's been used so i just was wanted to
bring your attention to that
okay counselor i appreciate guest
rodriguez
the arms chair i appreciate that comment
and
yeah we are are working with our folks
in alamogordo and reference
in uh reference to that you know this is
a challenge in particular i mean that's
been highlighted
within recent uh months you know in
particular with the air force
uh so so there is we we are we are aware
of that situation
are supportive of of the uh not only of
alamogordo but other places that are
being impacted by this and and
definitely
support your position in regards to this
term
well thank you very much appreciate it
that's all mr mayor i i had to mention
thanks uh
council vasquez did you have another
question or maybe forget to put your
hand down
i forgot to put my hand up thank you
okay
why are you already there yes thank you
uh
lance lair again uh mr mayor and council
uh
i will not uh read the slide but as you
can see these are
the areas that we're working which are
in accordance with uh what we've
we've talked about and what uh the mayor
you know mayor and council have uh uh
have
determined to be those areas
we have taken notes i just happened to
be the secretary so i will look into
castner we'll look into the police force
which i think we can definitely make a
change with
uh pretty immediately whether we do the
opd
or whether we bring down recruiting
officers to
uh soldier for life transition
assistance here to speak
during their weekly uh uh outbreaks
uh we can make it a a make make make
that kind of happen i don't think that's
a problem
um a pfas just to add my two cents
uh councilman uh you know the department
of defense is looking into that
department offense is absolutely taking
action
uh at the air force bases to include uh
uh fort bliss as well as holloman
because there's a
you know an air force base here big army
airfield and so all that's being looked
at
um again that's you know it's going to
be a costly endeavor but i i believe
there is enough
uh uh happening that this will be
something that will be taken care of
uh within you know within our lifetime
uh so
just to let you know we'll i'll dig into
that with fort bliss and see what
what's going on here but i do know that
that's being looked at by the department
of defense
in specific uh to do cleanups of those
areas that have that
contamination and uh are uh
changing uh the substances
that are being used uh for military you
know for fires and plane crashes and so
forth that that
that originally started this so that
should be good news
uh uh for what your question was
um everything on here is is pretty much
uh what we've talked about we didn't
talk too much about the encroachment uh
and the protection of the call-up area
uh but that is something that i think is
being being handled
clearly from a military point of view
they want to protect the call
up area so they're working with sunzia
to uh to route that line
so that it is not uh it does not create
a problem
um we didn't talk too much about the
defense contractors
using uh las cruces international uh but
we are still working with that we're
working with andy hume on that
uh he already has some additional uh
users since we had conversations last
and uh um you know our our political
leaders are advocating
uh which is a good thing uh and the
talking points
uh regarding the military complex those
are in hand
uh with the city manager and the deputy
city manager
um if you do not have one it's just a
very basic three by five card rundown
that you can see where uh uh you know
what the capabilities are
in las cruces white sands what the
economic impact
is uh to the city and white sands and
uh what the defense contractors are that
are actively working there
so i would just ask that uh if you have
any questions on this slide please
please ask them uh and we're doing some
transition then i
i don't know but if you guys can look at
a couple of those
stealth bombers just take off and i know
they would use the
protected area of white sands missile
range which is about 200 miles from one
end to the other
i can only imagine if they could make it
from one end to the other in just
minutes
you know and so on oh yeah yes yes sir
yes mr bear they
they they have uh a high level high
speed track as well
that runs through it's literally all the
traffic has to go around it
and so that's that was why it's so nice
to have
all of it and their capabilities here
and we are working
uh we are advocating for more
uh for more use specifically uh at lru
for
refueling and all are uh you know for
for stop stop-overs stay-overs
and stuff like that um and i think mr mr
hume can
can brief you on that but you are
working on that uh for bliss
you know uh uh has a small agreement uh
and we're looking for other customers
and hopefully
uh we can continue to populate uh or
repopulate lru with that capability
okay very good i think andy's on the
call mayor i don't know if he has
anything
to add or to ask of us that we might be
able to help him with
uh i understand although kevin cardosa
couldn't be on the call with us
by the way this is richard dave um but
i believe a week or so ago kevin reached
out to me and i gave him andy's contact
because
he had someone he was working with that
was interested in leasing some space
out at the airport so i don't i don't
have any more information on that
everybody recognizes your voice retreat
okay uh i don't know if andy wanted to
jump on
this or not uh yes sir mr mayor thank
you very much i appreciate
um have an opportunity to comment on
this this is andy hume
uh airport administrator for las cruces
international airport
uh i did uh was able to connect with um
with kevin
uh and we did have a conversation about
some potential interest ins and um
in an organization located here at the
airport uh also
as you pointed out mr mayor we did used
to have the navy
also we used to have um the marines out
of the yuma base
come and and practice a couple of times
a year as well
and we do frequently have transient
military traffic fly through on a
regular basis
um we certainly uh enjoy them coming
through
and we also have a lot of practice
uh flights out of uh out of bigs as well
so
we have some going on as was pointed out
but um
certainly have room for a lot more
growth in that regard
one thing we don't have room for is
unfortunately is air force one it's just
too big
and it caused uh seven hundred thousand
dollars of damage when the last time it
landed so
i remember that not so funny
no it's just too heavy it's just uh yeah
so
okay great well thank you who's our
presentation there
thank you gentlemen thank you for this
presentation and uh we appreciate all
that you do and thank you for
just to circle back the main reason
why i like having you and i think you
mentioned it about
a four-star general there's only eight
in the army
and years ago when when the government
starts looking at
reducing military bases we do not want
to be on that list
and i know your contacts with these key
people at the
at the pentagon and department of
defense is going to be crucial for
keeping loss
or keeping white sands missile range
holloman and fort bliss all intact
as they all work well together so thank
you sir
again we hope you can join us in
washington
i i should be i i should be able to i
think those dates
might work out pretty good well thank
you sir thank you council
appreciate your time uh if there's no
more questions we'll
we'll sign off and let you get back to
your real jobs
okay thanks well we appreciate it thank
you sir
thank you sir thank you okay so last
item is item 4.3 bicycle and pedestrian
safety presentation
and andrew ray
i haven't seen that name before it must
be new
good afternoon mayor members of the
council my name is andrew ray i'm with
the messiah valley and po if you'll just
give me
one moment to share my screen
so it's been a while since i've been on
the mpo i mean it's been
in fact i was on there in 1992. so who
do you work for andrew do you work for
the city or do you work for one
i am currently the mpo officer for the
npo
uh housed here in the city as the
administrative and fiscal agent
so you're not a city employee no i am a
city employee
but i i i work in community development
oh okay okay so just a little trivia
brian denmark used to be the mpo officer
when i first
started as a county commissioner gave me
probably um 12 inches worth of books to
read before my
my next meeting which was like a week
and i'll never forget that
i'm sure he's not watching but we always
became friends after that
as a general rule we still try to give
out some introductory materials but not
quite that much
but uh anyway just to give a brief
brief overview which the mayor already
sort of started
uh the messiah valley mpo is a federally
mandated regional transportation
planning agency
designated for central dona ana county
it is currently comprised of
representatives of the city of las
cruces dona ana county the town of
messiah
and nbop district one the current
uh representatives from the city council
on the npo
are councillor sorg uh councillor ben
cuomo
and counselor vasquez who is currently
serving as the npo chair for calendar
year
2021. i was asked today to come before
the city council to present on the topic
of bicycle and pedestrian safety
unfortunately the state of new mexico is
one of the worst states in the nation
for bicycle and pedestrian crashes most
notably with pedestrians
state of new mexico is the worst state
in the nation by pedestrian death rate
in 2019 which is the most recent year
for which we have data
there were 10 non-motorized fatalities
within the messiah valley mpo
area which includes the city of las
cruces the town of messiah
and most of central dona ana county
extending from radium springs in the
north
down to barino and the stout in the
south where we
abut the el paso mpo as a result of
these
unfortunate statistics the mpos bicycle
and pedestrian facilities advisory
committee
requested that mpo staff do an
evaluation of two intersections within
the mpo area as a snapshot
to get an idea and kind of a flavor for
some of the recurring issues that are
going on
within the mpo area
the first intersection that the bpac
requested us to look at
was the intersection of lowman and
walnut from a pedestrian safety
perspective
there were three non-motorized crashes
at the intersection of aluminum walnut
from 2015 to 2018
each happened as you will see on the
screen on the east side of the
intersection
and each crash involved a turning
movement which was something that we
found to be significant a significant
factor one there at the north end of the
intersection
was a right turn movement of a vehicle
that was on lowman and
turning on to walton the other two
collisions were turning movements of
vehicles that were on walton
and turning eastbound onto lowman
this was one of the more significant
factors of this particular intersection
uh something that we were made curious
about but we have not had a time to look
into
as to how frequent turning movements
might be
in non-motorized collisions we did it
was just something that was very stark
at this particular intersection and one
of the other things that i want to point
out at this intersection
is the width of the lowman walton
intersection because of lowman
being so many lanes that can create a
mobility challenge for those who have
mobility issues
the next intersection that we were
requested to look at from
the b-pack was the intersection of
missouri and travis and this was from a
bicycle safety perspective
we found here some different factors at
play partially dependent on the
different modes of travel
that we examined as part of this we did
not look at pedestrian
incidents at this location but also
depending on the different geography
at this location obviously this is
geographically a smaller
intersection than loman and walton
but also has presence of the travis
multi-use path immediately adjacent to
the roadway facility here and so it is a
more popular location for
certainly bicycle and pedestrian traffic
there was not
really a noticeable pattern per se of
the incidents that happened
uh two of the of the collisions involved
a through movement
uh of uh individuals uh utilizing the
crosswalk
on their bicycles and then one involved
a turning movement of a vehicle off of
travis eastbound onto missouri
and lastly uh when the city councillors
on the mpo policy committee requested
mpo staff to come and give this
presentation they also requested
us to take a look at the intersection of
main street and elks and travis as part
of this
unfortunately it takes some time for us
to receive the data
from the state crash center at unm and
unfortunately we were not able to
receive that information from unm in
time for this presentation
but we do annually receive generalized
crash
statistics from the state and so from
those
there were three non-motorized
collisions that were
kind of in the area of this intersection
one of them was at cedardale
another one was at linux and both of
those are far enough away that we don't
think that the circumstances
at this intersection played a tremendous
role uh
in those incidents and then lastly there
was
a i believe it was in 2017 a collision
at the back entrance of the border
patrol station
uh which is on travis just slightly off
uh
the the screen here of the slide but
again
uh not not having the reports in front
of us so we're not able to to say this
conclusively but
we don't think that there was any
uh interplay between the intersection
itself and the circumstances of that
collision
there is one other thing that i do want
to point out about
the elks and main intersection as north
main
is designated as us-70 so that facility
is owned and operated by nmdot so any
safety project that would be implemented
this location
would have to be sponsored and
implemented by
by the dot
as far as implementation options are
concerned there are a wide
variety of available tools that can be
used to improve non-motorized safety
at intersections and corridors i'm going
to go over a number of those today but
this will just be a sample i don't want
anything that i say here to be
interpreted as this is an all-inclusive
list it by no means
is not not so this is just intended to
be a sample
and also i do want to say that not every
solution
is going to be applicable or possible at
every location
it's an unfortunate reality that
compromise in either cost or
implementation
is almost always necessary when
constructing in the built environment
and lastly i also want to highlight
something that doesn't usually get a lot
of attention but i think it is something
that in the context of this
conversation is important to understand
and acknowledge
um there is a distinct tendency to lump
bicycle and pedestrian modes together
under the rubric of non-motorized
i've been doing it myself to some extent
over the course of this presentation and
that is a fairly common
a common thing but it does need to be
understand
understood that this nomenclature can be
very misleading
because bicycle and pedestrian modes of
travel
are in very significant aspects very
dissimilar from each other
uh they're they're not they're not the
same uh bicycling involves
the use of a vehicle a pedestrian is
just the use of your own two feet
and or uh mobility assistance devices
so they're very different in that regard
and because of that
sometimes safety treatments that income
that can improve safety for one mode of
travel
may in fact not improve safety for both
modes of travel and in fact sometimes
safety improvements for one can be
incompatible with safety improvements
for
the other um during my pre the rest of
my presentation i'm going to be
starting i'm going to be splitting my my
analysis i'll be looking at both
pedestrian and bicycle uh safely or
safety
uh improvements separately
and while i do want to say that they can
be very different
most of the time things that are going
to improve safety for one
will improve safety for both
the first safety treatment that i'm
going to highlight today
is the concept of pedestrian refuges
this is one of the most popular form of
safety improvement the idea here
is to reduce the amount of distance that
a pedestrian has to cover
before they reach a spot of safety or
increased safety within the intersection
this is done by the construction of a
curb
facility within the median of the road
to give the pedestrian an opportunity to
stop
have a rest if the light has already
changed then they can wait there for
the next light as i said this is a
relatively popular improvement it's also
a relatively simple
improvement but it is one of the the the
pedestrian improvements that can
show the most significant positive
impact for safety
within an intersection everything of
course has its downsides
and the biggest challenge with
pedestrian refuges the implementation of
pedestrian refuges
is often right of way there can be a
limit in right of way and pedestrian
refuges may not be able to be
effectively
constructed within constrained
right-of-way
the next i item that i'm going to bring
up is curb extensions
which is very similar in concept to
pedestrian refuges but is just on the
uh the outside of the intersection
rather than being on the inside
the idea here again is to shorten the
space that the pedestrian has to cross
in order to reach
a safer spot curb extensions can be
especially useful in locations where a
pedestrian is not
or pedestrian refuge is not possible due
to right-of-way constraints
however the while curb extensions can
have right-of-way
constraints of their own this is one of
the instances where sometimes
the two modes of of bicycle and
pedestrian may not be the most
compatible with each other because
due to the way that the bicycle lanes
may be
configured in a facility the
curb extension may actually interfere
with the bicycle lane of travel
so that is something that should be
considered and evaluated during the
design
process continental striping
um is actually a very common treatment
that's already used within the city of
las cruces
you see it at most intersections within
the city already
but it is a very important one because
it is a very low cost but a very
significant safety
improvement uh studies have conclusively
demonstrated that continental striping
is safer and more effective that the
pedestrian is more visible to the
motorist
within the um within the the the roadway
when they're within the crosswalk
and the definition the continental
striping is it's these vertical
from the perspective of the motorists
vertical lines that are that are striped
on the roadway
and not the horizontal lines the
horizontal lines by themselves have been
proven to not be a very effective
crosswalk
whereas this vertical hatching or
horizontal as it appears on the slide
is a much more effective means of
visually breaking up the scene to alert
drivers to the fact that there is a
pedestrian in the crosswalk
additionally the maintenance for
continental striping
is overall lower because you're not
getting as much wear and tear on the
paint
on the striping on the facility from
tire wear and so
the striping tends to last longer again
this is a very common treatment that's
used throughout the city of las cruces
and here on this slide is the concept of
raised crosswalks which is a
a concept that is becoming more popular
across the united states and around the
world it's a relatively new
uh a newer a newer concept
and the idea here is to instead of
having the pedestrians step
down to the roadway the idea is to
elevate the roadway to the level of the
sidewalk so the pedestrian just steps
out
naturally into the intersection and it
creates
effectively uh one large speed table of
the entirety of the intersection so the
cars have to go
up to the level of the pedestrians and
it creates
a physical barrier there which improves
pedestrian safety
this is also a very effective tool in
place making uh
if a municipality or jurisdiction is
looking to
sort of put a stamp onto a place and say
this this is a location that we want
that we're trying to build around and
create a unique identity for
raised crosswalks are an excellent way
of doing so
you can create very interesting patterns
and geometric designs within the
intersection
and they tend to last longer because of
the reduced speed of vehicular traffic
through a race crosswalk area
the downside of the risk crosswalks
tends to be it does come with
an increased implementation and
maintenance cost for the jurisdiction
and raised crosswalks can create
problems for freight movement so
it's a treatment that's most appropriate
at areas that are intended to have high
levels of foot traffic
and probably not going to be very useful
in areas that are intended to support
a large volume of freight movement
moving on to bicycle safety improvement
treatments
bike boxes as we see here on the slide
and green bike lanes in general are a
very common means around the country
of designating and improving safety for
bicycle spaces on the roadway because of
that very
sharp visual contrast for the motorist
to see the green bike lane there it
gives a
kind of a mental constraint on the
motorist to realize this is not part of
their intended driving lane that it is
something that is set aside for the
cyclist
there's a very successful uh at
improving
uh bike and ped safety uh throughout the
country
and it's my understanding i was informed
by miss lisa larocque
last week that i believe that the city
is going to be including some form of
green striping as part of the
bike and pet improvement project that's
going to be going along
uh in the walnut and madrid part of las
cruces
and also one of the big advantages of
this bicycle treatment is that this
treatment can be combined effectively
with almost any other treatment that's
out there to improve
safety similar in concept
to the idea of the pedestrian refuge
and can also be effectively combined
with that is the idea of the protected
intersection
and if you can see my cursor here the
idea is to build in
physical curbs effectively barriers to
the vehicular movement
to carve out space for both the cyclist
and for the pedestrians so that there's
a barrier between the vehicular traffic
and the the vulnerable user again this
is a very effective
uh treatment that that is effective for
both bicycle and pedestrian users
unfortunately uh similar to some of the
others that we've talked about
the the pedestrian refuge etc uh
the implementation of protected
intersections can be constrained
by limited right-of-way
and then the last treatment that i'm
going to discuss today
is the roundabout obviously we're all
very familiar with roundabouts and the
safety
benefits of slowing down traffic and
giving non-motorized users space
within the roundabout is well documented
there are however i'm actually going to
to point out
something with regards to roundabout
that oftentimes is not really taken into
a great deal of consideration
and that's the fact that while
roundabouts are demonstrably proven to
be safer for the
bicycle user there are actually some
indications that
roundabouts may actually be a little bit
worse for the pedestrian user
than the traditional uh crossed
intersection
and the reason for that is as you see
here we've got the crosswalk if you can
see my cursor
over here and the issue that
has come up in some literature that i
have reviewed is that
vehicles that are in the roundabout may
not be looking ahead
to see the pedestrian in the crosswalk
they may still be looking
at the traffic that is within the
roundabout trying to fit themselves in
and
not looking ahead also it is easier in
some instances depending on how the
roundabout is designed for pedestrians
getting from one opposite corner of an
intersection to the other
the traditional intersection may
actually be easier and safer for the
pedestrian
rather than the roundabout just because
of these repeated points
of some degree of additional friction
however that being said
the the reduced speed of the roundabouts
overall is a net positive for
all non-motorized users within the
within the roundabout
and i also do want to at the conclusion
of my presentation today talk
not just about geometric improvements
but i also want to discuss
uh safe behaviors in education and
and what all of us as road users in
whatever mode and we all
utilize the road in different capacities
at different times so it's it's
applicable to all of us
but all road users motorists cyclists
and pedestrians each have a
responsibility to watch out for each
other and communicate with each other
when the different modes interact with
each other on the roadway
everyone needs to always obey the laws
and traffic controls
it's very important for all road users
to be predictable in their actions so
that everyone can anticipate each
other's movements
it's very important that and it needs
stressing that all road users whether
they're in a car
on a bicycle or on their to on their own
feet
they absolutely must maintain good
situational awareness at all times when
they are
on or near the roadway and not let their
attention get distracted
one of the most important factors that
is consistently
a a top contributor to crashes
is inattention and that's one of the
things that we each
have the power to improve that statistic
on our own
uh each and every single time that we
use the roadway whether we are biking
whether we're driving or whether we are
a pedestrian always always always
keep your attention focused on your
surrounding
roadway users should always be sober and
alert when they're on the roadway should
not
be attempting to use certainly not motor
vehicles but even
should not be using bicycles
or even probably walking too much
when you are under the influence of
alcohol or drugs
um and lastly every road user regardless
of mode
should take the time to educate
themselves on their responsibilities
depending
on their mode drivers should especially
be watchful
for vulnerable users at all times obey
speed limits
and be always be aware of their
surroundings cyclists need to be sure
that they are visible at all times to
all road users
and to maximize their safety should use
a bike lane if it's available
or be as far over to the right in the
travel lane as is practicable
and to maximize safety pedestrians
should always remain on the sidewalk if
there's one available
and if there's not to always remain as
far from other traffic as possible
and it bears repeating again and this is
the final thought that i'm going to
leave the council with today
is that the importance of staying alert
on the roadway cannot be overstressed
some of the recent tragedies that has
happened within our area even within the
past year
could have been avoided if those
involved had maintained good situational
awareness of their surroundings at all
times
um situational awareness can literally
be a matter of life and death
um and that concludes my presentation
mayor
but at this time i did uh
speak with public works and collaborated
with them on this presentation
so i would like at this time to yield
the floor to
i don't know i know mr trevino is on the
on
the call and mr subu lee is on the call
i don't know which one of them but i do
want to
uh yield the floor to public works for
some follow-up comments from
them at this time okay and then we have
a couple council members that
have some their hands raised as well so
you said tony and mr lee lee
yeah you're not mr mayor this is tony
trevino with public works the deputy
director
um at this time i don't have any further
comments i will pass on to sue
if not we can go in and wait and suggest
any questions
that the council does have
good afternoon my name is sugily i don't
have any also do any comment and i'm
waiting for the any question
okay so counselor beta stubby
thank you uh mayor and thank you
um i have a few questions just
um with regards obviously i'm sure
standards
and have changed over time
and looking at that um have
we done an assessment of the full city
of looking at um beyond these two spots
that we
um that you mentioned before which was
the missouri
and travis and then one of um
some of our areas that are not
maybe up to current standards as far as
traffic safety goes
mr mayor councillor betas this is andrew
ray from npo
mpo staff has not these are the only two
intersections that we've done a
comprehensive analysis of
i defer to the city of las cruces staff
if they may have done something
mayor and this is surgically and the
counselor disturbing we have
focused on the several the cold war we
have some the
issue one of the the cordova we are
focused on is a university enlargement
and we are working on the the analysis
of the any safety and
pedestrian issue in the city the first
step we are trying to do is we try to
collect the data
for the actual the level of service for
each intersection we have some issue
we receive the concern from the resident
and then also the mpo
and then uh there are several other
sources of the unity
of the complaint and we are continuing
to working on
but we have a different approach than
what the the mpo
they present to the uh the council
because of the the engineering
perspective is different than the
planning
so we have a little different approach
but we are very similar you know the
staff we are taking but much
thorough because of we have to
take care of the all the legal issue so
also we need to follow the old
the requirement the federal state and
the local
okay thank you for that i appreciate it
um and looking
you know uh on university i know that
would be an area where it would be very
useful to slow down traffic since you
at least the motorized traffic since you
have such a large
population that that walks and uses that
area
um andrew you did talk about different
types of
mechanisms to help slow down or
cars or protect intersections
and i was curious to see if there was
any recommendations
of preferred methods that around
areas like a school um i know that we
have
um some that even on missouri there's a
lot of different
child traffic and they're right next to
the road and so i was curious to see if
there was um
a preferred method for those types of
situations
this is andrea ray again uh it very much
depends
on the surrounding context so i couldn't
say
uh that there is in general
uh means or mechanism that that could be
used
it it very much depends on a
case-by-case basis of the surrounding
context of
the location that you're looking at
because every location
is going to have its own unique context
and every location is probably going to
have its own unique configuration of
problems so i i really couldn't
give a broad brush answer that question
okay thank you um
and tony is there any extra
ideas or things that we've utilized in
the past in those types of areas
to help with the traffic
yeah um mayor comes to a beta stovey
uh a perfect example is we just got
notified of
a map grant from nmdot
which will be putting a hawk system a
high-intensity crosswalk on pikachu at
4th
street that is a major crossing for
students crossing picacho to get to
mccarthy elementary so
that is one of the items mr ray had
mentioned it just depends on the area
the location and how closest to these
major corridors but
um we just got notified a week or two
ago and we're going to be moving forward
accepting that grant and getting into
the design process of it
okay thank you and then looking
for the future if we had to re-design an
area or um add buffers
um and i i'm sorry i didn't write this
slide number down but
uh there was one of the um
ideas was to have the protected
intersection
and have a little bit of space it looked
like
from the curb to the road where there
was a little bit of a buffer
um so the cars weren't right next to it
and for me that just seems
uh like a good idea in some of those
spaces where you have
a lot of um of the smaller individuals
uh
walking and hanging out near the corners
and sections like that so i'm not sure
what type of process or implementation
could
happen yes um thank you um
that's uh you know i can see a lot of uh
individuals
you know um especially near those
crosswalks that we have
um on missouri to conley elementary
um you know in areas like that that this
might be
an idea to help uh with those
that protection
and then as a second one and this is
perhaps
um for counselor vasquez uh and myself
and counselor ben como since we sat on
the el paseo corridor
ad-hoc committee looking to see what
types of perhaps protection might be
needed in some of our
more i guess robust areas
areas that have bus stops too
because we know that people often like
to cross the street near those stops as
well so
it's perhaps something that we should
look at if we can
um and i know that we're closing up for
those types of meetings but i just
wanted to throw that out there
and those are all my questions for you
mayor
okay thank you counselor i'm
yes thank you mayor thank you uh andrew
um and
counselor made the stewie for your
questions um
[Music]
yeah so i i want to thank you andrew for
bringing this presence
into council i think one of the reasons
uh
the counselors on the mpo staff asked to
bring this to
the council for a work session was
i believe over the last three years at
least that i can recall
uh the an intersection in particular has
been identified
as a um as a problem spot for
these types of collisions or or
pedestrian accidents and so um
we wanted to bring it to the attention
of staff as well as council
um and uh you know obviously since this
is in my district i'm very familiar with
this intersection but
um i'm i'm wanting to get some more
clarity
on what next steps are in terms of
recommendations from
uh staff or mpo uh on how to
uh mitigate the impacts of the current
um
safety hazards or or the um
what i think is is not a great layout
for for pedestrians and bicycles at this
intersection in particular
so maybe my question is to mr lee or to
mr ray
uh and my question is do you think that
pedestrian safety improvements are
needed at this intersection
and if so uh how can we uh go about
getting this on a project list
for the near future
mr mayor councillor vazquez this is tony
rivino
um which of the section are you talking
about because one on the screen is
a illustration so i'm not quite sure
which intersection
uh walton walton in loma baltimore
moment
so um
i'll let sue go ahead and answer this
one i know he has been looking at it
uh for quite some time already there's
some
some right away constraints i know
probably one of the best
uses for this would be that median
refuge
however due to lack of median here and
kind of just each of all the
amount of traffic went through here that
is going to be a difficult
intersection just due to the uh the
right-of-way the
gas station right there on the south
side and so forth but soup
do you have any further back back on you
yes
mayor and councilor vasquez
when we received any complaint from the
resident
or the any institute first thing what we
used to do is
we analyzed the most recent
or recent accident in three years
and then look at their the what the
actual cost
and we look at the the the
accident report but unfortunately every
the example
the location the mpo present to the the
city council at this point it's all
human error
so if the human error involved the city
staff we use
not the go into the too much detail
unless there is a significant number of
the united accident
but we know that this intersection
specifically
uh any intersection along the loman
we're trying to
find the why the people not the uh
uh obey the law specifically when they
got our the
right tongue or left turn on the
unprotected
they supposed to yield to the pedestrian
but that's for law
so we trying to put something more
visible or give another warning sign
to the the uh the driver they make a
turning movement
so that's the first thing we look at it
second we also look at the what the
the signal timing and what the traffic
volume depends on the you know the
traffic volume and the parent
we try to uh change the signal time to
minimize any conflict or given more time
to the
the pedestrian or given more time to the
the driver so we can give more time
to the both pedestrian and the driver to
minimize the
the conflict point or the conflict time
the other one is the the
uh the geometry
as the andrew showed that there's a
several different you know the treatment
also city we're looking at the several
different treatment but unfortunately
there is the the um pros and cons for
the every single
you know the um mitigation method so we
can i cannot tell you which one is the
best
so as the andrew mentioned every
location has a different
the region to have a more or some
the different the contribution factor so
we
trying to address the issue but at this
point
most important things in this each
location and
throughout the city we're trying to
focus on the education
because of most of the accident
about 95 percent to the or little over
of the accident is all human error so
that's reason we're trying to
focus on the education working with
our police department and the las cruces
las cruces public school
so we can educate the young driver and
then also we're trying to educate the
the regular you know the driver but
whenever we have any uh
whenever we find any the some the issue
for the engineering issue then we're
trying to address it as
as possible so at this point we don't
have any plan
to due to any major improvement and this
location but we try to uh
change and then implement some of the
timing we call the
the timing for the bicycle list
once we see the more bicyclists use this
intersection
then we will try to implement our the
signal timing for the bicyclist
and then also we may consider to put it
into some bike
bike box but not not at this point
thank you mr lee thank you uh mr
travigno
mr would you would you agree that
that good engineering and good
street design has to account for some
level of human error
um in terms of the social um
aspects of how human beings behave
should we be
creating a built environment that is
also reflective of
many people not following the law or
proper protocol
at certain places at sydney certain
intersections like this
mayor and the council vasquez i agree
with you
but i want to just to remind you and
then
all the the member of the council we are
the fourth
or the second worst the driver in the
united states not only you know we are
the worst of the pedestrian
but that the one of the the big
contributing factor
is the driver's behavior
thank you mr lee i appreciate that
answer and i think um
for this particular intersection um you
know i
i don't think education is it is good
enough um
and i'll just say i'll say i don't think
we're going to get very far with
continued education efforts
i'm not sure that that's going to reduce
the pedestrian conflicts here um i've
traveled often on and
and have seen in particular what's most
the most heartbreaking is
you see a mom with a stroller um rushing
down
the intersection from you know
mcdonald's
to to walmart or or something like that
um trying to make sure she catches the
end of that
street while various vehicles are
uh inattentive or not paying attention
um
and one it's not very dignified way to
cross the street
because it's so long and and there's i i
don't feel like there's enough
pedestrian protection features
here um and then second it's a heavily
heavily
trafficked pedestrian area um i i think
anyone who drives down the street will
will acknowledge that and so i i don't
personally think that the existing
protections for pedestrians there are
good enough
um and again this is this intersection
has been highlighted by the mpo for the
pedestrian
and vehicle conflicts um for three years
now
and so there's clearly an issue here
that that we're not working on we're not
solving
um so i would love to see some
opportunities
to improve pedestrian safety at this
intersection
uh in addition to the education um
and and i'm wondering what the best way
would be for us to go about
initiating that if there is council
consensus
just wanna um
bring to light that we are working on
this corridor as part of the active
transportation plan
regarding the walnut on the on the north
side
uh community development is working on
the south side of this intersection with
some pop-up bike lanes to kind of start
to come up with some kind of plan
or coordination of how to accommodate
bicyclists and pedestrians here
um so this is kind of the um
the intersection of both these projects
coming together so this isn't
unfortunately all these items that were
brought up by mr ray on this
required right away so there's going to
be some engineering and planning we just
can't go and do some immediate striking
or some signage so this is going to be
part of a major
capital improvement project as well as
several of the utilities in this area
need to be redone also um and
some it's not only this this
intersection but it's pedestrian safety
parallel up and down this woman corridor
so we just can't go and address the
intersection it's going to be a whole
quarter
process from telstra the i-25 down
west so this is a big area that we have
talked about before and what we're going
to do
um but it's just going to take some time
to kind of see what kind of right away
what can we do here
and trying to get the active
transportation plan on the north-south
direction to accommodate some of this is
what we can currently do
without such a huge impact to that inner
section so staff is working on that from
two different departments
to try and get this accommodated so no
your your comments are
well received we are aware this has been
brought to our attention before we're
just trying to figure out how we can how
we can
attack this this is going to be such a
huge project for us to
um thank you
so mayor and then this is sugi lee again
uh
the council of vasquez yes we are
looking at this one for the temporary
and then also for the long term as the
tony mentioned about the the
long term we also take we'll take a look
at the more closely about uh some
temporary or the immediate you know the
uh the fix
we can do with the current budget
thank you mr lee and thank you mr
trevino and um
uh yes absolutely i mean in terms of the
budget setting i would love to
prioritize this area
for um for for
you know budget uh recommendations that
are in line with keeping people safe
here
um don't have a few recorded accidents
there's a lot of near misses there's a
lot of people nearly getting hit
or accidents that aren't reported that i
know happened at this intersection
and so um i just want to keep that in
mind because those things may not be
recorded in the official numbers and so
most people i think will agree that this
is a vehicle-friendly
corridor um by as many lanes as we have
but it's not
a very people-friendly corridor not a
very people-friendly intersection
um and so i just want to make sure that
we are proactive and working on that um
tony
mr therino sounds like like we are
working on that
uh i just want to make sure that this is
prioritized again because the problem
exists now and the people are crossing
this intersection now
and and want to you know want to do what
we can as a city to keep our pedestrians
safe
along this particular intersection so i
appreciate your work thank you
mr trevino thank you mr lee thank you
mayor
thanks councilman mayor pro-tem thank
you mayor thank you councillor vasquez
and councillora betas to be
uh mr ray mr trevino mr lee
you know i'm i am
was really i've been concerned about um
pedestrian safety and um
when we have um folks that are hit and
who are either injured badly or
or who die they stun you know being hit
and whatnot
and i i feel there's a disconnect and
when i say that
i don't know what mpl's responsibility
is
and it starts and where it ends and
where
our city traffic and planner starts and
ends because i think we deserve
as a public and a community to
understand
where those hot spots are where those
areas are and so
you've mentioned some mr ray
specifically and
i think i'm asking and i think um
council is asking for some mitigating
practices to be
you know to be implemented and i'm not
i'm not hearing a plan
and it's disturbing and and
disappointing
and so i'm i'm asking that um
there are these hot spots um places i'm
glad to hear that the
the hawk system is going to be put up on
fourth and
picacho i think that's going to be very
helpful
but i'm also thinking about um
you know i've been talking about the
madrid and solano
area and there was a very bad crash i'm
not sure if there it was
deadly or not but there are places all
around
community where we see crashes be it
bicyclists pedestrians
and then we don't hear from anybody
about it and and i think
we need to have more communication about
what the city is doing what
mpo is doing related to those and so i
i i
i have sort of the same questions and
really concerns that my fellow
counselors have um that have
have been brought up and and i'm i'm
really
wanting for us to be proactive rather
than to be reactive and i
really like um and appreciate concert
about this do these
comments about an assessment if the
assessment hasn't been done
in in our entire city to see where
there's hot spots and or
problematic areas that quite don't meet
the standard it needs to happen and i
really like to hear it back from
um from traffic and mpo related to that
is that a possibility
mr mayor councilwook councilwoman dotto
this is andrew ray from the npo
thank you for that question that that's
a very good one uh regarding allowing
an opportunity to kind of clarify the
division of responsibilities
the npo is planning only the kind of
funding that we receive from the federal
government
explicitly excludes us from getting into
design and engineering
that is the sole responsibility of
in this case the city of las cruces but
the owning jurisdiction uh which would
be the city
or larger larger field the county the
town of macia or nmdot
uh we do the planning uh the the owning
jurisdictions do the implementation
so i'd have to turn it over to the city
for for further clarification on that
thank you mr ray mr tavino
mr mayor protein candidate that would be
since an analysis on this is kind of a
planning in which production to go
uh mpo i can meet with mr andrew ray
and kind of see what will be required
for this and this will just be kind of a
planning moving forward
um kind of kind of projects so uh
we can meet here very soon to kind of
discuss in what would be the best
approach for this and
what is available out there for data how
long will it take to get this data i
know
mr ray mentioned there's about some lag
time getting some stuff from
the state and also one of one of the
major corridors that was he did
mention was elks road in north main
highway which is under design and is
planned to be reconstructed by nmdot
here in the near future
times are 90 done so that that is
whatever that is are going to be
taken care of also so i can meet up we
can
collaborate mpo and public works to kind
of see what some ideas are
thank you thank you tony i really
appreciate your
um your willingness to do that but i i'd
really like to see an assessment
being more proactive identifying those
spots where
we may not be meeting um
or or you see like i hate to say this
uh you know trap an accident waiting to
happen
um and and and just coming up with
what the time frames are what the budget
might
be for these particular items to be
implemented
um that that would be so helpful and
since you brought up the l70
um i did get a call last week late last
week on the traffic
signal or the pedestrian there is i
think an ada
um you know where someone can hit that
button but it's too
high up for someone in a wheelchair um
and and so i i wanted to
i wanted us to check on that and make
sure that
that isn't the problem and if so that we
need i don't know what the proper term
is that an extender of sorts that
helps folks right to help
folks reach up to that button to push
because i'm seeing quite a few
more wheelchairs you know automated or
motorized wheelchairs
um being used and and and so i
i'm looking at those kinds of things i
think those are important
um issues to to also be looking at
um and and working with people like the
beloved community and
and um donaiana community united they do
lots of safety walks and point out
things that are of
of concern um related especially to
folks that are
that are disabled and wheelchair bound
and then um you mentioned education
mr lee and i i wanna i wanna
hear i'd like to see
really more detailed um
edu what that what that looks like um
because i i don't really see it if and i
think we need to take a real
a more proactive stance in
developing an educational campaign that
really addresses
many of those issues not only when
there's accidents and
fatalities but also on an ongoing basis
and if there is an educational component
i i'm just not aware of it
so if we could do that i think that
would be helpful and
that that it goes on not only as a press
release but
you know i think we need to think
creatively innovatively what sort of
educational opportunities arise and not
maybe just specifically with las cruces
public schools and the young driver
um but with other other entities maybe
it's with the state maybe it's with
nmdot
um those that are issuing out and
licenses tests um you know for drivers
drivers ed i think we really need to
um i like to see just a more robust
educational campaign so i get i said a
lot there and i guess what i'm asking is
what does your educational campaign
consist of how frequent
is it and when does it happen you know
when does it happen is it just
when there's accidents or um
and and more specifically
you know how are we going to address
this
mayor and counselor gandra
we have a several different component
with the education the first one
i don't know whether you saw that one of
the our new
uh npo i'm the the pio
don't notice released uh last friday
about the do not block intersection the
specifically we took
us on the video and then that's our
education part and then also
the city staff specifically my staff
they continue to involve the uh
national night out uh and then during
the national night out and we
handed out some of the the uh flyer
for the how to use the the roundabout
how to use the hawk signal
and then there's several other the uh
the handout we give it to the
the resident and then also we continue
to involve with
las cruces public school for the
education part so whenever we have any
issue
surrounding or adjacent to the school
school
or the school facility and then we
continue to working with
the alaska public school and then also
the administration
specific and then also we used to have
used the uh the board
the presentation board along the the
misery
for the the our the neighbor traffic
coming program and then general
the our the safety and the driver
the aware awareness and then also we
have
used some other the form but it's not
regular and then also we and the
participate for
every single the counselors the
constitution meeting
with our community outreach group so
either me or my staff continue to
participate and then educate the you
know the constitution
what is their concern and then also we
show the some of the issue and the
specific location
but if you want to see the some of the
detailed information then i will work
with
tony and provide more information to you
thank you thank you mr lee i think that
would be really helpful and again i
i'd like us to um
to work just very specific specifically
and i have seen all those all those
things you've mentioned i
when i see the whole
um message board out i'm like yeah
something must have happened or
um they're trying to get people's
attention right and
that happened very uh um
recently as they're on the loman um
tell shore area i i saw that message
board
and and so i know that that that we're
doing the best that we can but i'm
thinking of
a really robust campaign
that that um gets
you know gets implemented and that we
saturate our radio stations and our tv
stations and
and just really talking about um
you know that we're second or last or
the worst
in in pedestrian fatalities and or
um car accidents mostly drivers right
inattentiveness that kind of thing
we just and not that i want to shame
people but and that's not what this is
about
i i just feel like we
we need to have a more active campaign
and that's all i'm going to say
about that thank you mr lee mayor those
are all
my comments and questions
okay thank you mayor tim um
looks like council flores had a question
thank you mayor and thank you mr trevino
and mr lee
and mr ray for your um for your
the information you presented to us um
in
insofar as education goes i i think that
there's
this is a comment um or an observation
um i think there's a direct correlation
between
the state of new mexico not requiring
driving tests
and or uh you know actual driving when
you
you know go to mvd to get your driver's
license
and uh to have a uh someone watch your
your driving skills right along with you
and
no um and when you renew your driver's
license there's no
uh test there so
in terms of knowing you know like people
uh
not knowing that they can actually go
into the intersection when there's a
flashing
yellow left leg and left turn arrow
and then proceed when it's safe as
opposed to just sitting
um not even entering the inner not even
taking care of that you know that's an
example it's a pet peeve a lot of people
have
and yet we don't learn from that so
um i'm just wondering if uh the mvd
the state of new mexico could uh help
out here and
mr lee you said that new mexico
what you said was quote we are second or
fourth
worst drivers unquote uh presumably in
the
usa uh or was that last
mr lee was that las cruces in new mexico
or was that as a state
um in the usa
mayor and the council of florida it is a
statewide statewide
ranking right a statewide ranking
and um and i know that new mexico just
you know colloquially or anecdotally
is is uh held to that uh standard of
being
you know having bad drivers poor drivers
but you know i don't think that there's
anything
innately yeah i don't think that people
are innately incapable of learning how
to be good
drivers i think it's a lack of education
and perhaps education
in so far as having billboards isn't the
answer but i do think that
maybe we should have some state funds
for
for educating drivers for implementing
driver's tests
at time of getting your first driver's
license getting
driver's education in high school so
it'd be a question of also working with
the public schools
i don't know how all of that would be
done but that needs to be done
and as far as funding goes
i would have probably um you know
there's probably
grant money out there federal money
sitting there to educate people how to
drive
um you know the use of roads is very
important
and we don't want especially with you
know these major arteries
really i i interstate or
highway 70 interstate
10 and 25 and
highway 28 all of those being connectors
to other states
are very very important to assure that
we have safe drivers
so i i don't these are just my comments
and my insights here
and i think that yes the intersection at
uh walton i you know the council of
vasquez said walnut but
actually that mcdonald's and and walmart
are on walton and loman
but um and so when you gentlemen were
referring to
walnut i don't know if you meant walton
but it doesn't matter
the point is that um
we we need education and i'm just
putting that out there maybe it's
something for
amy johnson basford to look into
for us to get money from the state i
don't know
definitely work with our schools but but
we need to have driver's education
you know get behind that steering wheel
and and uh
and and do some of that simulated uh
type of driving
uh as you learn and that should reduce
the the number of accidents uh necessary
accidents
thank you mr mayor and thank you
gentlemen
okay thanks
okay um anything more on your present no
do you have a question counselor stewie
no sir oh okay anything more in your
presentation tony or
sugou uh mr mayor
uh meredith council this is tony trevino
again
um just in regards to
mary pro tim's comment on education
what we can do is we can reach out to
eio and our community outreach
and see what what kind of education we
can do um
during the interim i know kind of during
the past year it's hard to do a lot of
public meetings and so forth to kind of
expand that education so we'll work on
on catching up from the year that we've
had behind
um and it just came to my
mind but we had talked about safety and
ada compatibility on inter sections
public works had all our major
intersections analyzed for ada
accessibility
so a lot of that stuff has already been
done from the engineering kind of
geometric standpoint so what kind of get
there from
the pedestrian side and how to analyze
it so some of that data
is already done um so we will begin with
that and according with
with mpo 10 just some of the questions
ever brought up thank you thank you tony
uh mayor this is surgically i'd like to
add one more thing you know i forgot to
mention to
the counselor gandra about the education
the one of the the component i did not
mention to you
is that we the traffic management we
continue to working with
our the police department so i don't
know you have noticed that the
the whenever we have some issue or some
of the
the complaint we receive and then we
monitor what's going on at the specific
intersection or the corridor
and then we coordinate with the police
department
for the local street or the residential
street or the intersection specific
we have some education project sometimes
it could be the uh the
just education or sometimes we issue the
citation
where sometimes we put it into some the
radar dolly
so we can be aware the driver be aware
that their speed so that's
another component of our education
okay great i appreciate that
okay anything more or is this conclude
your presentation
mr mayor this is andrea from npo i don't
have anything else
very good all right well we appreciate
the
presentation and then you're going to be
getting back some information get back
with mayor protem about um tony
uh yes sir okay great all right well
there's nothing further i believe this
concludes our work session
so um i need a motion a second to
adjourn
and then i'll stick around for the
agenda-setting meeting
emotion made by counselor sword second
second bite
second by councillor flores christine
this was on the motion to adjourn the
work session counselor beta suvi
yes council vasquez
yes councillor ben cuomo is
absent counselor sorek yes
cancer flores yes
cancer candida
yes mayor yes
okay we're adjourned it's 3 32 p.m
enjoy the rest of your day and i'll
stick around for the agenda study
meeting
christine the agenda i have has three
items on it is that right
yes
okay i'm ready when you are okay this is
the agenda setting meeting for july 6
2021 city council meeting number one on
consent
one non-consent number two non-consent
two non-consent number three non-consent
three non-consent okay awesome great
thank you too bye-bye